The material that will be discussed in this thesis is molybdenum oxide nanobelts. The molybdenum oxide nanobelt was synthesized using the hotplate technique. This technique was adopted because the process is simple and produces a high yield of nanomaterials. This technique was also extended to synthesize nanomaterial on a variety of substrates to study the effect of substrates on morphologies. Besides characterizing the synthesized material using XRD, Raman, TEM and SEM, the optical properties were also characterized and investigated. The nanobelts were found to exhibit vibrant colors and the investigation on the color led to the development of a new technique to conduct optical characterization on nanomaterials. To allow better control and manipulation of the optical properties of the nanobelt, nano-machining technique to manipulate the nanobelt surface using the atomic force microscope was developed and this technique exhibit great potential in the future surface related explorations. Besides the characterization of the materials, possible application of the nanobelt as photo-sensor, gas sensor, field emitters and hybrid system were also explored.